Jim 2.0

This is David Q. Hill. David Q. Hill has nothing to do with this post.

These pairs of lights are the eyes of deer in the dark. They, too have nothing to do with this post.

Anyway. Old roommate Jim came to town and hung out with me and Joe. We ended up seeing Canisius College, which Jim hasn't seen since he transferred four years ago.

The new Eastman building.

???

The new hallway connecting the Student Center to Eastman. Joe and Jim are weirded out.

Jim and Joe are like two Big Brothers (or Big Sisters)

Jim deciphers the underground tunnel system.

Huzzah!

They don't broadcast, but the Canisius radio station got a new paint job.

Two, in fact.

Wouldn't YOU like to be a Big Brother?

This was a note to myself. Who wants to check it out?



The new Quad at night

Then we went to dinner at the Sahara Grill, under the lovely nighttime shade of a plastic palm tree.

Baba GHANOUJ!

Joe's mouth catches fire

Jim is satisfied. For once, his concubines will have the night off.

Eventually we made it to Spot Coffee but then scheduled in a Jam Session and a midnight showing of Enter the Dragon. It took me an entire day to sleep off this monsterous evening.

Larkland Sunday

dude, I have this sandwich maker


This is my lamp! Good thing it has those useful arrows on it or it would never work!

I'm currently training to give architectural tours in the summer. The other week our group went on a dry run of the former Larkland estate near the Albright-Knox. This is one of the five houses, four of which still exist.

Another house, which was temporarly owned by a school. They're big freakin' houses.

All of these houses are in the Colonial Revival style. Symmetrical front, romanesque porticos, window arounds and above the door, etc.

An old, overhead photo of the estate

We got to go into the largest existing building, built by John Larkin for his son John Larkin Jr. It's now owned by the Buffalo Seminary.

Das group

The dining room

The kitchen

Stairs. I can't believe I'm writing these captions.

The front gate

Abe Lincoln at the Casino. Where he belongs!

I finally confirmed what happened to Frank Fanara, thanks to Phil's blog.

Inside the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society, where our lectures are held each Saturday.

This building is the former New York building, the last remaining structure from the 1901 Pan-Am Exposition. Apologies if you're not interested.

Finally, a paper-mache cactus outside UB's Center for the Arts. Good thing it has those arrows on it or it would never work!

Toy Story Vs Requiem For A Dream

Hosted on Break.com

On 3 January 2005 I posted a list of New Year's resolutions. Since I've recently posted few extensive posts this will do as your half-hearted personal update for the month. That sentence was awful smarmy. Comments are in italics

--Finish my effing thesis
done, thank goodness
--Go to bed earlier
sometimes I go to bed at noon, does that count? bloody overnight shifts
--Spend less time on the Internet (curse you, Fark.com!)
this needs work, so I gave up Fark for Lent
--Get back down to about 160 lbs. I have some pants I'd like to fit into.
nope. but at least I didn't gain any weight
--Read Cross' The Burned-Over District
done, and it was as interesting as it was boring
--Get a Real Job come May
September, depending on what you call a real job. anyone want to hire a history grad?
--Kill Flanders
that darned Flanders!
--Finish my thesis
yes, I had two of them, and I finished the last one at 10 PM, December 31
--Rock
should have rocked more. still got a few appearances on Joe's album and some of Tim's demos
--Stop eating spaghetti and Chinese food by the pound
am currently down to three-quarters of a pound
--Finally get my Dual Citizenship Card renewed ($60)
by the time I finally did it the cost was $75
--Leave the house once every couple of days
that was an easy one
--Never ice skate again :)
oops
--Stop faking the funk on nasty dunks
did you see me jumping over Spud Webb? good times
--Do the Lord's work
did you see me jumping over Spud Webb? good times
--Find Sleater-Kinney fans, hang out with them
where are you people?? i had to go to freakin' Cleveland to find you
--Less chocolate, more salad
more both!
--Stop drinking milk and eating ham. It gives me the s***s; why do I still do it?
pretty successful here, though it's info I should have never given up in the first place
--Finish my thesis
funny.

Thank You For Your Support

Here are some of the ways you found my site:

This site is ranked #1 for "bestality cases in Jamestown, NY" on Google.

It's also #57 for "indestructible light sabers" on Yahoo.

AND it's #25 on Yahoo's search for "photos of Amsterdam's hookers."

The Schrock-Ferguson Radio Hour #2

Download Podcast Here

Thanks to the four people who heard our first podcast. Here's the second episode, dedicated to you, the fans.

Recorded: 16 February 2006
Hosts: Joe Ferguson, Fred Schrock
Edited: Fred Schrock
Recorded: Joe Ferguson

Speaking of painful noises, you can check out this review. Also, Mclusky will come out with an anthology soon which should be awesome.

Finally, I submitted two albums to The Indie Connection that you are free to download, both by members of the now-defunct cult favorite Cibo Matto. I highly recommend listening to Smokey & Miho's The Two EPs as well as the self-titled album from Butter 08.

Now, enjoy some funny street signs.

Podcast #1

DOWNLOAD The Schrock - Ferguson Radio Hour

We've started up the old show again. To download, there's a short countdown and a confirmation code. Just follow the easy-to-read, minty-fresh instructions. It's about 30 megs and 30 minutes so make some time.

Podcast 02/02/06
Hosts: Joe Ferguson, Fred Schrock
Recorded by Joe Ferguson
Edited by Fred Schrock
Incidental music by Fred Schrock and Joe Ferguson
"Cold in B-lo" early demo by Joe Ferguson

MONSTER JAM!!

The Whopperettes™


Here are some scans of Frankenstein's visit from a while ago.

Tim took Frank on the roof to show him the neighborhood.

Hannah "parks" with Frank and shares a soda

Frankenstein takes out the trash!!

Later, Tim kicked Frank in the groin so hard that he farted to death. In the absence of more F'n Stein photos, here's Madd Dogg kissin' on some guy.

Madd Dogg, Richie, Tim, and Slagor

Hannah and Jeff

More gang members

Another pic of Slagor

Happy Hallmark Day

another important holiday

Queen Street Man

View It Here

Ed already beat me in posting "Brokeback to the Future" so I'll counter with this. Where in your city is the Queen Street Man? Here in Buffalo I nominate Jamie Moses as the Elmwood Avenue Guy (thank you Matt Taibbi).

Jim

For years, many have wondered, dreamed--nay, fantasized--about the whereabouts of one James Steinman, grandmaster of that most perfect union of science and mathematics: feeezics. We found him one dark afternoon at the University of Rochester.

Jim took us to a mysterious watering hole with dozens of giant televisions. The great Seahawks and Steelers were victorious that day, but we had to wait to get in.

Since we had last met, Jim has used his deeevious aptitude at feeezics to devise ways of drinking beer faster than allowed by the space-time continuum.

Jim's Subaru is almost newbaru!

Jim then invited us up to his new, spacious digs. We promptly went through his stuff, looking for personal effects. According to one report, his fridge is well-stocked with orange juice.

Jim used to wear a lot more black. Now he dresses more casually, saving his black clothes for midnight vampire hunts with Chuck Norris. Those vampires are breaking Texas law!

Jim then told us he had a bevy of women coming over, and that we had to leave. There are some things Jim just doesn't share. For better pictures, check out joeferguson.blogspot.com.

These Are The Daves I Know

Download the song by The Kids In The Hall!

"Hudson in Saskatchewan" had been looking for this song on the Internet and somehow ended up with my E-mail address in the process. I didn't have it but helped Hudson find it anyway. I post this link because (A) it's a great song, (B) other people might be looking for it, and (C) my good buddy Dave just had his birthday. If you check out this other link you can find a picture of Dave at the bottom-right of the second page, doing what he does best.

While I'm at it, check out the pre-"Lazy Sunday" song "The Heist" by The Lonely Island, who now writes for SNL. They ripped off half of their own song to make "Lazy Sunday" but both tracks are still pretty funny.

In other news I finally burned my 202nd and final MST3K CD. Hey, it only took four months! Later.

Finished

Three and a half years and two Masters degrees. It's about time.

Whatever you do, make it Quik

Katrina showed God was mad at America, says New Orleans mayor - The Guardian

I only post this article because it has the best quote of the year thus far:

Yesterday there were calls for him [Mayor Ray Nagin] to justify a promise to rebuild New Orleans as a "chocolate" city that some had seen as divisive in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

"How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about," he said.

Aaron Beebe, 24

BuffaloNews - Death Notices

Pleeeeeease Reeeeead!

Joe Ferguson put a counter on his site recently (thanks to the good people at StatCounter.com) and I thought hey, I should too. Then my counter started going faster than his. Much faster. At the time of this writing my counter has just passed 2900 while his is above 2300. Neither of these are extravagant numbers, but what's the deal? I thought I didn't have any friends. Let's check the numbers.

Here's a clue. Normally the main page gets the most hits. In this case, however, twice as many people viewed the December 2005 archive. There must be something from December that found its way to a search engine and got popular--more popular than my own (cough) notoriety.

I don't know if this is big enough for you to read, but it appears that others have searched Yahoo and Google for the spam E-Mail I posted on 5 December. You know, the one where Bill Gates gives you money for forwarding a chain letter?

Here are the actual search terms. An astounding 96.61 percent of searchers came to my website using some variation of the E-Mail's header. The other 3.39 percent came looking for information on Linda Stouffer, anchorperson on CNN Headline News. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but we should investigate further.

I tried out various versions of the Gates E-mail header on both Google and Yahoo. In some places my site was as high as 4th! For such a well-known hoax that's not to bad, especially considering I got the same E-mail ten years ago. I wonder how many saps click here thinking it might be their lucky day? Anyway, from now on I will simply post spam on my site to up the hit count. Lucky for you! Oh, and searching "'Linda Stouffer' bio" on Yahoo puts me at 7th or 8th, depending on its mood. However, one more question remains. Do I have any friends? The above graph proves the answer is: "only a few." In case the type is too small, that green Pac-Man represents the folks who spend less than 5 seconds looking at my blog. Pfft goes the ego.

Here is a fatter, more Irish Pac-Man showing that only 10.8 percent of viewers actually come back. Now let's compare this to Joe's less-viewed blog:

Now ain't that something. Joe has less hits, but a more devoted fanbase. It's as if I'm the Britney Spears of the Web while he's Sufjan Stevens. Or more literally, he's Joe Ferguson. In detail, here is more evidence. Below is a chart showing my last 100 viewers based on their location. Note how randomly distributed the readership is. I believe the blank space represents me as I gathered material for this post.



The second chart is for Joe's site. Remember too that Joe has friends and family in Western New York, California, and Nashville. See how much more concentrated his data set is?

Thus endeth the lesson. By the way, in a larger list of visitors that "Came From" another website to mine, only one out of a hundred wasn't a Bill-Gates-E-Mail-spam search page. That website was JoeFerguson.blogspot.com.